Emmett is adorable!

Today we got our CD back from Michelle Reyes (click here to see her website).  She did such an amazing job that I teared up a little bit when I first saw the pictures.  To be honest, I think the newborn photo shoot craze is kind of weird.  I wasn't planning on doing the load of naked baby pictures of our little man until Michelle approached me about a trade possibility.  I have a hard time refusing a good trade, so we decided to do it and have the photo session.  I am SO happy that we did.  I just love looking at these pictures.  Emmett was four days old when these were taken.  I had only been home from the hospital for a few hours.  I was tired and it took all my energy just to shower and get all ready.  When I look at these I am filled with emotions of gratitude for such a healthy, beautiful boy.  I am grateful for what my body went through to get him here.  He is so sweet and pure.  We all love him so much.  The boys love him beyond belief.  He is the calm and peace in a chaotic, crazy day.  We love our sweet little boy.  Here are a few of my favorites from the session:

(Notice his cute cowlick on the crown of his head. It sticks strait up.)

Hyrum's Big Day

With Emmett's coming and all the excitement that comes along with bringing a new little person into the world, we didn't want Hyrum to feel like we passed over his birthday.  He's been talking about his birthday pretty much daily for the past six months.  We knew we had to make it a special day for him.  We had an Oriental Trading magazine come in the mail a few months ago and Hyrum was certain that it came just for him.  He would go in his room and look through each page analyzing each toy and party favor.  His party theme desires changed several times, but he finally decided on aliens.  There aren't a lot of alien decorations out there, but we did the best we could.  Originally we were going to do something outside, but there was a record making heat wave in Utah and so we decided to move it to the church's gym.  Most of the party preparation and purchasing was done before Emmett was born because I wasn't sure if I would even be out of the hospital on the big day.  I was SO happy that I was able to be there.  Other then some setup and take down I didn't do much during the party.  Brett was an amazing MC for all the kids.  IT was a big group of kids and he kept the games moving along and the kids happy.  They started with some games and a little dance party (Hyrum loves showing off his dance moves). 

 The piñata was the most important request that Hyrum had for his birthday.  He talked about pinata's every time he mentioned his birthday.  

 The kids loved the alien party hats.  Although his Alien Cake ended up looking a little more like a five eyed frog, it seemed to appease Hyrum.

Sometimes I can't believe we have a six year old.  It's crazy how fast the time goes.  He is such a sweet boy and I am so glad we have the opportunity to have him in our family.  When we asked him what kind of ice cream he wanted for his birthday he immediately told us what kind of ice cream his cousins like/don't like, because he wanted to be sure he had something for everyone.  He cares about what people like and wants to make people happy.  He got some amazing presents.  They've kept him in his room for many hours this past week, busy playing.  Brett found an amazing kids electronics exploration kit that we got him for his birthday.  He has had so much fun making things and learning about circuits and how electricity works.  He is so smart.  He loves to learn how things work.  He is very inventive and tells me several of his inventions each day.  I'm excited to see where his mind takes him in life.  We love you, Hyrum!

Home with Emmett

The boys love Emmett.  I have been pleasantly surprised at how well the boys do with him, especially Owen.  I can't say that I would trust them alone with him, but they really do love him.  Hyrum is usually very responsible with him and wants to be a good big brother.  He always wants to have a long tern holding him and snuggling with him.  Noah loves holding him too.  When Noah holds him he usually says, "Mom, I'm going to give the baby a present!"  and then he kisses his head. It's SO sweet!  Owen is a little scary with Emmett sometimes, because he doesn't know his own strength.  Sometimes he will give him 'high fives' on his body, but for the most part he just wants to hold and kiss him.  He is so sweet.  Whenever he sees me holding Emmett he always plops down near me and pats the floor between his legs, indicating that he wants me to put Emmett there so he can hold him.  He loves his little brother.  We have to keep a close eye on him because his snuggles and hugs can sometimes be a bit too much for our little peanut.  We like to say that Owen just loves Emmett so hard.:)  

 This picture was taken on Hyrum's birthday.  Hyrum turned six when Emmett turned one week old.  I love my cute little men.

 This was the last night with Grandma Rushton here.  It was great to have her help for two weeks.  The boys will miss her.  Owen will especially miss going on walks with her every morning.  

28 June 2013 – Emmett Rigby

Contractions again.  I had been getting them every night all week fairly consistently, so it wasn’t a big surprise for me to be having them.  I recorded them, as I had the previous nights.  On this night they seemed to be a little more intense.  On June 27th the first contraction is recorded at 9:08 PM. And it continues. . .  9:18,9:28, 9:39, 9:46, 10:01, 10:24, 10:37, 10:53, . . . time to doze off while watching The Office on Netflix. . . the short sleep was kind of pointless because I kept waking up in pain when another contraction came.  Now it’s time to start recording them again: 12:07, 12:17, 12:28. . attempting more sleep but not working very well.  Now I’m wondering if I might actually be in labor.  I was pretty hesitant to get my hopes up because I was positive I was going into labor pretty much every night for over a week. 28 June 2013 - 2:18am, 2:28, 3:12, 3:18, 3:25, 3:35. . . ok, time to wake Brett up and pack things up for a trip to the hospital.  Brett ran down to wake my mom up and have her move her slumber upstairs so she could hear the boys when they woke up.  Still coming. . . 3:39, 3:42, 3:45. . . now we’re in the car. . .3:48, 3:50, 3:52, 3:56, 4:01, 4:04 (this last recorded one was in the hospital parking lot holding onto Brett’s hand)

After signing in and getting hooked up to machines I had the fun of being monitored for an hour.  The babies heart rate dipped quite a bit during my contractions, so the nurses kept a close eye on him, but it was never bad enough to worry.  After being monitored they prepped me for surgery.  Here we are in our monkey suits ready to go:    

The anesthesiologist gave me my spinal, and it didn’t bother me because I was so excited and ready to meet my little man.  I know I don’t have a perfect memory of my other births, in fact big parts of them were really a blur, but I didn’t feel like my numbness was the same this time around.  I was a little concerned, because it seemed like I had more sensation this time than I did with my previous three C-sections.  I was assured that everything was fine.  Things seemed to be going well too.  When they made the first incision I could barely feel it.    My regular Ob was out of town so one of Dr. Jones’ associates performed the surgery.  Brett and I were talking about Hyrum’s birthday party coming up to keep me distracted from the details of what happened behind the ‘curtain’.  A little while into it I started to feel pain, and the pain was increasing.  I couldn’t think about anything else other than the pain.  I started throwing up.  With my body lying down on the table and unable to move my arms I just had to tilt my head to the side and Brett caught it in a vomit bag.  I am so glad that Brett is not squeamish and is so helpful in yucky situations.  The pain was so bad that I don’t remember much of what else went on.  I remember them showing me our beautiful baby boy and I was so happy and relieved to hear his cries.  However, I was in so much pain that I struggled to even turn my head to look over at him when they took a picture.  Brett went with Emmett to be checked out and cleaned.  With the other boys, Brett has gone with the nurses to take the baby to the nursery.  I was so scared that I was going to die that I asked Brett to stay with me until my pain had stopped.  Brett told me the anesthesiologist inserted two syringes of drugs into my IV and shortly after I started to calm down and feel better.  As soon as I was okay Brett went to find our cute little miracle and wait for me to join them. 

Brett and I went into this birth with different ideas for his name.  We had gone back and forth with favorites and finally decided that we would make a final decision when our little Fishy got here.  When we saw him we both knew that he was Emmett.  There was no hesitation between us.  This little man born at 6:54 am on June 28th was Emmett Rigby Partridge.  We had been waiting for him to join our family for what seemed like forever, and now that he is here we cannot be happier.  He is loved beyond belief by Brett and I and his three older brothers, who still call him ‘Mystery Baby’ or ‘Fishy’. 

I was so happy to hold him for the first time about an hour after the surgery. 

He had some visitors on his first day of life that were very happy to meet him.  Owen loved holding him too, even though we didn’t get a picture.  His three older brothers are happy to have a new member of the family and I can tell they are going to be great big brothers for him.

 

I stayed in the hospital to recover for the full four days.  I loved having that time to really bond with Emmett.  I love holding him and having him sleep on my chest.  He is so small and warm.  He makes the cutest little squeak noises and doesn’t cry too much. As for me, the recovery is going pretty well.  Pain medicine alters my ability to function so much that I get off it as soon as possible.  I stopped taking them before I left the hospital and have been doing fine.  This is my first C-section that has given me bad bruising around my incision.  I was pretty worried about it when three different nurses commented on how they had never seen bruising so bad.  My lower abdomen had a very black and blue bruise about 6 inches long and 4 inches high above the incision and a smaller one just below.  Now, nine days later I can see a big improvement in the bruising.  The coloring on a lot of it has now changed to yellow and it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it did last week. 

My mom was able to keep up with laundry, dishes, cleaning the house, and the boys.  I’m very grateful that she could come, and I’m glad the boys were able to spend some good time with her.  She left early yesterday morning and so we’ve now survived two days with our family of six.  I feel very blessed.

The boys have been so great with Emmett over the past week.  Owen has surprised me the most.  Sometimes he can be rough and too hard with him, but usually he is very sweet.  He LOVES holding Emmett and snuggling with him.  I am excited to see what great friends they will be.  I have more pictures and fun things to post, but for now it’s time for me to go to sleep.  I feel very happy and complete with my beautiful bigger family.

Last One before Baby Day. . . maybe:)

Ok, still trying to be sure everything is totally up to date before Mystery Baby comes.  I was so positive that my water was going to break the past few nights, that I wake up kind of disappointed that another night has gone by with nothing.   I think I need to be more patient and just be happy that he has more time to grow and develop in my safe body.  Here are a few pictures from this week.

Swim lessons!  The boys LOVE swim lessons.  They are getting really good in the water too.  I signed them up for the same classes they ended with last summer so that it would be a good review for them since we haven't done a lot of swimming since then.  Hyrum is the star of his class.  His teacher raves about how good he is and that he is by far the best swimmer in the group.  I think it's a great self-esteem booster for him.  I'm pretty sure that he's also part fish.  Noah is doing great too.  The review class is really good for him and he seems to love the water games they play holding his breath.  He's a great little swimmer too.

Tonight Brett helped organize the ward High Priest Group Social.  It was such a great night for everyone.  The weather was perfect, the park was beautiful, and the food was amazing!  There were lots of fun grass games to play.

 There was a beautiful lake to play in.  Noah played in the lake with some of the other kids for quite a while.   He and Owen also got to feed the ducks.  

There was canoeing available to anyone who wanted to go out.  I'm pretty sure Hyrum went out at least 6 times!  He loved it so much that he just waited on the shore and took every available opportunity to get on one of the canoes.  He also preferred to row, so it took a little bit of patience from the other people riding, but he really did an amazing job.  Sometimes I think he should be raised closer to an ocean:).

Dirty Boys

I took the boys up to the Canyon for a picnic with some friends.  The boys love to explore.  While I was sitting on the picnic bench I noticed Owen was missing so I looked around and found him sitting ontop a mound of dirt.  He was picking up the dirt and throwing it and then laughing when the wind would blow it right back in his face.  Then, of course, he would 'wipe' the dirt off his face with his even dirtier hands.  He looked like a chimney sweep.  I swear, these pictures do not even show the smallest part of his dirtiness. Man he's cute, even covered in dirt.  He went strait in the bath when we got home.:)

I've been really trying to keep the house clean in case I need to rush to the hospital and someone needs to watch the boys.  Today when I got in the shower the boys were happily playing with some cars and legos, so I wasn't too worried about the time they would be unattended.  When I got out of the bathroom I could hear lots of laughter and noticed the boys' door was shut.  I opened it to find this: 

It was one of those moments when I had to make a quick decision: either get angry and start throwing out discipline, or walk away quietly and grab the camera.  . . I chose the camera.  After taking a few pictures I smiled and complimented their creativity in making the slide/launcher and then reminded them of the house rule, "You make a mess, you clean it up".  Then I left and laid on my bed until one of them came out.  They wanted to eat lunch, so I said I would make them sandwiches WHILE they put the bed back together, because we can't move on to another activity until the first one is put away.  It took a little while and a few complaints, but they managed to push the mattress back up onto the bed and somewhat put things back where they should be.  Sometimes the boys drive me crazy and leave me feeling like I am always franticly trying to keep up with their energy, but they are such good boys.  I feel so blessed to have so much sweetness in our home.  

Phone Dump

Yep, still nesting and trying to make sure I've organized and updated everything possible before the baby comes.  Last night I finished updating each of the boys photo albums.  I love looking through old pictures and videos and remembering how much my boys have grown.  It's crazy how fast time flies, even when some days seem like an eternity.  I know the pictures on my phone are kind of blurry, but I was so happy to find these pictures:

This was during Hyrum's kindergarten program

One of our neighbors gave us some fun costumes that their boys had outgrown.  Our boys have been having so much fun with them.  Notice little Owen in the background in his Luke Skywalker robe:) 

This was taken on the second to last day of school.  Hyrum absolutely LOVED riding the bus.  Richard was such a great Grandpa for the kids and helped them not be nervous.  It was a great year.

 I haven't taken many pictures of my pregnant self these past couple of months, but I really love the way my boys snuggle around my belly when we're on the couch and talk to it.  Here's my snuggle buggle today during quiet time.